First watchOS 6.1 beta arrives for devs

The first beta build of watchOS 6.1 was seeded to developers this morning, one day before Apple is set to release iOS 13.1 and iPadOS 13.1 to the public. WatchOS 6.1 beta 1 arrived alongside macOS Catalina 10.5 beta 9 which still doesn’t have an official launch date, but is supposed to launch publicly in October.

Apple released watchOS 6 to the public just last week. The update added a new App Store to the watch natively along with new watch faces, complications, new apps, and improved fitness features. The release notes for watchOS 6.1 don’t mention any major new additions and likely focuses on bug fixes and under-the-hood improvements.

Registered developers can install watchOS 6.1 beta 1 through the online Apple developer portal. First, add the right configuration profile to your device and then download the beta through the Watch app on iOS.

Apple warns developers that some of the new watchOS 6 watch faces aren’t available in watchOS 6.1 beta 1. There are also known incompatibilities developing and debugging from Xcode 11 on an Apple Watch running watchOS 6.1 beta. Developers should update to the newest Xcode beta when it comes out.